Mom to Mom: A celebration of independence

Jul. 6, 2012

Written by

Free Press correspondent

As Burlington’s waterfront fireworks flashed in the sky overhead, and the accompanying bone-rattling booms reverberated through my core, I soaked in the scene. I was surrounded by a cushion of comfort — family, friends and festive food — all part of an annual Fourth of July tradition.

While I imagine most of the enormous crowd around me was focused on the pure excitement of the fireworks display or, perhaps, meditating on the deeper meaning of the celebration of America’s birthday, I found myself reflecting on a much more personal version of “independence” this year.

Our family’s transition from a nuclear family to two single-parent homes provided me with an independence reality check. I have always considered myself to be fairly independent; however “independence” has taken on a more tangible meaning in the past year. Independence in my world means that I have had to mow the lawn more in the past two months than I had in 20 years. I have planted a garden, changed the oil in my car and coached Little League. I have tackled technology problems, built Cub Scout projects, constructed tricky Lego models, assembled toys requiring batteries and moved heavy furniture — all responsibilities I had gratefully passed off over the years.

My lack of enthusiasm about some of these projects has provided a few challenges along the way. In the first week of May, when I finally decided it was time to deal with the overgrown jungle that used to be our lawn, I realized that procrastination was not the best option when dealing with lawn maintenance. Armed with a push reel mower and the knowledge that I had 12 8-year-olds arriving for a birthday party the next day, I set to work. I was determined not to be defeated by a lawn, but the precarious pitch of the hill in our backyard, the hot sun and the wet, long grass all conspired against me. I contented myself with mowing a small patch of grass and a path to the tree where we would throw water balloons.

During the next 24 hours, however, my teenagers alternated attacks on the lawn, and somehow, by the time the birthday party rolled around, we had a respectable-looking yard. I was overjoyed that somehow so much positive had come out of this conundrum: I had learned my lesson about not letting the grass get the upper hand, and my kids had displayed a side I had never seen before — a willingness to pitch in, sweat a little and get the job done.

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Before the next weekend rolled around, I borrowed a self-propelled mower, learned to start it (not without some recognition of my pathetic upper-body strength) and managed to tame the lawn on my own.

Independence has been a learning process. I decided to buy a couch off Craigslist without really contemplating the fact that I couldn’t actually move a couch on my own. Some friends rallied to help.

When my son informed me the night before his Cub Scout pack meeting that he needed to build a balsa-wood sailboat for a race the next day, I tried to take it in stride. We sanded, measured and glued with abandon. He painted it purple. When he put the boat in the water the next night, he discovered that the paint wasn’t waterproof and colored the stream purple for the entire pack.

As I have taken on new tasks in my effort at independence, I have noticed my kids picking up the slack in areas that were typically assumed to be my responsibility. Somehow the laundry started getting done on its own. One day I overheard my daughter giving her brother a hard time for claiming not to know how to operate the washing machine (and then teaching him how to do his laundry). I have noticed my kids helping each other with homework. They pack their own snacks and sports equipment for school and remind me when they need permission slips signed and lunch money deposited.

Independence has forced me to release some responsibility, and my kids have responded admirably to fill in the gaps.

I wonder sometimes where we would be right now if we hadn’t undergone this immense change in our family life — if my kids didn’t rotate between two homes, if they didn’t have to adjust to two sets of rules and expectations, if things were as they always had been. Would I ever have learned to start a lawn mower? Would my kids regularly have done laundry before they left for college? Would I ever have spent an entire Saturday morning building a robotic bug out of a soda can?

Independence has forced us all into some roles we don’t love, but I can now see that there have been some positive results from this transition. I am doing more, but I can’t do it all. This year of growth has forced me to rely on friends and family in ways that I never had before. Independence Day this year allowed me to reflect on the fact that perhaps in my pursuit of “independence” during the past year, what I have really achieved is “different dependence.”

What is really worthy of celebration for me this Fourth of July is the amazing combination of family and friends on whom I have depended to see me through my personal struggle for independence. A celebration of liberation from laundry duty might not be what our forefathers intended with that first Independence Day celebration, but I’d be willing to bet our washboard-bearing foremothers would have seen it as reason enough for fireworks.